A brief memoir concerning the typhus fever, prevailing in Aberdeen, during the years 1818 and 1819 / [George Kerr].

  • Kerr, George
Date:
1820
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A brief memoir concerning the typhus fever, prevailing in Aberdeen, during the years 1818 and 1819 / [George Kerr]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of the body, and the frictions with pulverized ice or snow, so much recommended by the Russian physi¬ cian already mentioned, Samoilowitz, appears to be a harsh and unpleasant remedy,* Giannini recom¬ mends that the patient, labouring under the disease with much increased heat, should be placed in a Bath heated to 98° of Fahrenheit ; that the warm water should be gradually drawn off by a small cock, while cold water is admitted through small apertures in va¬ rious parts of the bath, till the water is quite cold. No shock is produced by this means, while the wish¬ ed for refrigeration is effectually produced, iepid affusion is for the most part very grateful to the pa¬ tients, who may by degrees become accustomed to colder water ; and spunging with water milk warm, upon every exacerbation of fever, appears to produce a better effect in cooling the patient, than if the water were quite cold. But after the strength is quite re¬ covered, there can be no doubt of the utility of cold bathing in whatever form may be agreeable to the patient, the powers being now equal to oppose a pro¬ per re-action to the shock. Cold applications are • some- * Samoilowitz certainly found frictions with ice of the greatest utility in pestilential cases. A large piece of polished ice was sometimes used, which rapidly abstracted heat from the body, the skin appeared flushed soon after the operation, with great alleviation of even the most formidable symptoms. He describes one case of a young woman, in which the symptoms that in pestilence usually precede the death of the patient but a very few hours, were removed by repeated frictions with pieces of smoothed ice, and health was completely restored. Ice may be thus employed; without wetting bed clothes m any considerable de¬ gree.
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